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OT: Anyone composing w/a DAW AND ProTools?

Hi -

I use Cubase SX3 on a PC at home, and I'm trying to figure out how best to integrate with a new studio that I'm starting to work at quite a bit. It has ProTools HD on a mac. I've been looking at possibly getting ProTools LE here at home, but after getting to know ProTools a bit (it's been a couple months now) I am completely turned off to it as a composing tool. It's a great audio program, but for midi and composing it's just not for me.

So now I'm thinking about installing Cubase SX3 on one of the Macs at the studio (they would let me, already asked, they're friends of mine). But I'm trying to imagine a setup/workflow that makes sense and I'm not sure how to go about it. If I install Cubase on the same PC that has ProTools, I don't have an audio card that it can use, cause the only interfaces on that box are the Digi cards, which Cubase can't talk to (right? do Macs/PT have any kind of virtual audio ports I can route audio internally? I do this with my Emu sound card at home). They also have another Mac with a Firebox on it which I could put Cubase on, but I'm trying to think of how this would work, exactly - do I just feed the audio outs of Cubase into PT? Is that the extent of the 'integration'? The minute I record anything at the studio into PT, it's not available to me anymore at home, unless I export it into Cubase. Not very 'integrated'. And going from Cubase -> PT, I would only have 4 stereo analog outputs to go into PT. Not much to work with in PT, unless I:
a.) Do most of the mixing in Cubase before it hits those 4 stereo outs. But that doesn't make sense, can't use any of the TDM plugins, etc.
or
b.) Be constantly recording submixes into PT so I can mix in the PT environment. But that totally defeats the purpose of having Cubase: the nice MIDI functionality, changing/tweaking performances (VSTi's). I might as well just be shipping WAV files back and forth and forget 'integrating' at all.

Is anyone working like this, composing on a non-PT DAW and trying to integrate w/a PT studio? I think a lot of people send their finished product to PT studios, but it's just one way - they just send WAV file stems, they're not trying to do round trips like I'd like to do. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm missing something. If anyone has suggestions on how you do it, or how I might think about this differently, would be much appreciated.

(Sorry for the long-winded question, it was hard to make this question short tho!)

Thanks!

buzz

Last edited by buzzripper; 12-21-2007 at 06:29 PM.
Reason: Change title

Re: OT: Anyone using Cubase SX3 AND ProTools?

Hi Buzzripper:

I have been in a similar situation. I have been using Cubase and after this Nuendo (I do a lot of audio postpro for film as well as composing original music) and, a year ago, I sold my RME interface and bought a PT HD system. The reason was just the same a lot of studios use Pro Tools: it's a standard (note the preposition: "a" standard, not "the" standard). I've tried to use it in composing enviroment, and there is no way. As a sequencer, there is a long way to go to PT to reach Cubase, Logic or DP.

So my way of work now is this: I use the HD interface (an 96 i/o with an Core card) as main interface for both PT and Nuendo, but I do most of my work in Nuendo (including mixing in stereo or 5.1 and post audio for film). I use PT only when a client comes with a PT session in a hard drive and wants it to be mixed.

You can use all Digidesign interfaces with Cubase, Logic or DP. A few years ago, Digi programmed an ASIO driver for its interfaces, so you can use it (of course, it was an strategy to keep their products in the growing market of ASIO/VST users).

With the latest updates of Cubase, the mixing and the automation are as good as in PT. So, why do you need to mix in PT? You can do all your mix in Cubase and, if you need to send your final work in PT format, simply create an empty PT session and load into it the mastered files from Cubase.